Monday, November 2, 2009

For this week’s response, I looked at the work of Do-Ho Suh and read the interview of him on designboom. When I look at the artist’s works, I can’t help but be reminded of the work of Surrealism and Dadaism which were popular in the early to mid 20th century. One such art piece that comes to mind is Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” piece where he took a urinal and changed its environment to make it become something else. One artist that he was inspired by was Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who would make installations with various items like candy and allow the viewers to take the candy and use that to symbolize death. In most of Do-Ho’s art pieces, he uses found objects to comment on aspects of society, whether it was American or Korean society was up to him.

Like Marcel, Do-Ho Suh used objects that were associated with one aspect of society like the military and used it as something else. In the piece ‘Some/one’, he took thousands of military dog tags and linked them together so as to make a dress out of them. This was done to illustrate that every soldier was part of one large body and were not just individuals. This comment on the military seems exactly what a surrealist would do in order to bring this to the attention of the people in order to get a reaction to it. When I look at this piece, I feel a sense of awkwardness knowing that these people served their country and yet their tags are used to make a dress which seems like an odd choice of clothing to me. It seems like something an emperor would wear to show his bond to his military or his victory over his enemies.

In conclusion, I think that Do-Ho Suh was an artist that could be linked to the Surrealism/Dadaism movements of the early to mid 20th century. His art seems to reflect the attitude of someone who finds it necessary to use found objects to comment on society. He also reminds me of other artists that would use found objects to create a more conceptual piece like Tate Gallery and Tracy Emin. His subject matter would include many different aspects of society as well as himself including the military dress and the arch way to his family home in Korea. Do-Ho Suh was an interesting person and one of many who should be thought of if anyone considers Surrealism as inspiration for future art.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

When I first got in to the museum, I went to see that art film about an airplane trip on the first floor. The animation of the piece was very basic and the sounds were typical airport noises. But I felt the narration of the piece was very well done with the animation matching the sounds we heard. This seems, though basic in nature, that it would have taken a lot of time to get it nailed down correctly. After that, we went on to the 3rd floor where there were paintings from various artists.

One such artist was Georgia O'Keefe who made a lot of flower art and had it displayed throughout the 3rd floor. The dates on these pieces ranged from the early 70’s through the 80’s but all having a similar theme to them all. In all of them, there was vibrant color ranging from reds to blues and even colors in between. These were all paintings and they all were about the same size ranging from 3 feet by 3 feet to a few that were 3 feet by 4 feet. But he often seemed to use a close up on the stamen of the flower as though he was saying it was the most important part to him. Was he trying to send a message through his art be it sexual or not? I'm still not sure to this day as to what the intention is.

My next venture was the video called "Rock My Religion" which was completed in 1984 by Dan Graham where the goal of the piece was to suggest that music, particularly Rock and Roll, was an art form. You could tell the piece was a bit old because of the people featured and the graininess of the footage that was featured. This piece was shown through a projector in a dark room on a screen that I would guess to be at least 8 feet by 8 feet. It seemed to say that music was an experiment in conceptual art and was used for different purposes such as religion and politics. In the piece, there were featured artist such as Jim Morrison and Jimmy Hendrix as part of the subject matter. I've never really thought of music in that way because to me music was just something to listen to and enjoy. Although, I do notice that throughout history music has reflected the cultural theme of the time it was made in. In the end, the trip was a bit of a learning experience.

Monday, October 19, 2009

In this week’s reading, we continue with the Communist Manifesto and how it was trying to prove that communism was better. In the third part, they seem to give a long history lesson on how aristocracies of England and France used the government in dishonest ways to suppress the Bourgeoisie by spreading omens of a terrible future if they remained. It goes on and talks about how the communists and French Socialists overcame the “one-sidedness” and spoke based on the will of truth. This part, to me, seems to show that the communists are only interested in the truth and want to help the people as opposed to their government. I think that this was a good tactic to use because it makes Communists seems like a more honest bunch of people that are interested in shedding off bad forms of control.

The fourth part is short and sweet saying that the Communist supports any and all groups that are going against corrupt government. It is clear that this part is the rallying section of the Communist Manifesto and to show that they encourage revolution if it is needed. Having now read the entire thing, it’s clear that the first few parts were specifically written to address the problems of government and the next parts were to provide a better solution or alternative. I can see how this would be an effective tool to promote themselves as the saviors from corrupt government. The Communist Manifesto parts 3 and 4 are meant to be a promotion of communism and the support to overthrow what the people feel is ruining their lives.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

If you haven't gone out to go see it already, go see "Capitalism: A Love Story". It is one of Micheal More's best films to date and it is about the economy and the middle class jobs. It's a great film for anone that wants ideas for economic based art pieces.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

I was wathing the tail end of this show on Showtime called Penn and Teller: BullSh** and what was going on was they were criticizing the critics of videogames. Anyway, they were talking about how parents hate video games because they're violent yet they applaud kid football where they sustain injuries such as broken legs and and heat strokes and many others. Yet video games can't do that to them and when I did research on kid football, there were a surprising amount of deaths from kids accidently killing other kids while playing. Doesn't this seem to say that the parents and critics are being hypocritical when it comes to video games?

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

I consider my work to be conceptual in the issue of what is reality and fiction. We all accept that it’s normal for people to go to work, for firefighters to save lives, and that anything beyond the normal society can only exist in video games or movies. But what if their reality was mixed our everyday lives and fiction became real. How would we react if what we knew to be impossible became possible? These days it’s easy for anyone to create a photo that they can manipulate on a computer. They can create images that create laughter or make a super model look better than they really do. In one of my artworks (a 3 part series), I explored just that by choosing particular things from particular categories like a decade, person, place, or thing and making it look believable and a bit humorous. This was done simply by putting images of people and things into a scene and altering them in photoshop.

My goal for most of my work is to make a believable scene and make the viewer feel a particular emotion or mood for that piece. My interest was always been to make the viewer laugh a little, but have an overall good feeling of amazement towards the piece. With all the different ways I’ve learned to do so, I believe a can make it a reality and provide my viewers a good experience. Through the use of digital media, it is easy to create an environment with the use of a Hollywood background and use a plethora of different techniques to create the world as it could be. With all the advances in what the computer can do for us, I have been able to use photos, like one of Marilyn Monroe, use techniques like shadow creation and use brightness or darkness to make her look like she works with the area she’s in. The digital Interface of the keyboard and mouse allow me to be able to shape and mold anything like a photo of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park into Hollywood scenery and make it believable. I use these methods such as burn, fade, change in opacity, and many others to test my abilities, both conceptually and practically, so that my art can reflect the possibilities of what I can do.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

I consider my work to be conceptual in the issue of what is reality and fiction. We all accept that it’s normal for people to go to work, for firefighters to save lives, and that anything beyond the normal society can only exist in video games or movies. But what if their reality was mixed our everyday lives and fiction became real. How would we react if what we knew to be impossible became possible? In one of my artworks (a 3 part series), I explored just that after choosing particular things from particular categories like a decade, person, place, or thing.

With the use of digital media, it is easy to create an environment with the use of a Hollywood background and use a plethora of different techniques to create the world as it could be. With all the advances in what the computer can do for us, I have been able to use photos, like one of Marilyn Monroe, use techniques like shadow creation and brightness/darkness to make her look like she works with the area she’s in. The digital Interface of the keyboard and mouse allow me to be able to shape and mold anything like a photo of someone into another photo and make it look like that person or thing was there (ex. The ghost of JFK on the Hollywood Walk of Fame). I use these methods such as burn, fade, change in opacity, and many others to test my abilities, both conceptually and practically, so that my art can reflect the possibilities of what I can do.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

I'm back and this time it is for ADA 498 Senior thesis project. Already it seems that it will be tuff from the get go, but I've felt that way about other classes and have come out more or less on top. Hopefully luck will be on my side.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

I felt I did very well with this project because I had fun doing it. The images were carefully chosen so as to create humor and aid the piece. As for the animation, I think that it was done in the right style of stop-motion animation because I felt that style best represented how to illustrate the rules of Rock Paper Scissors. I also loved working with the footage because they were all aids to the comedic aspect I wanted to achieve. In conclusion, I believe that this project represents all that I learned in Digital Arts: Time Based and should get a good grade because of it.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

I was trying to get it to match up with what was being shown and that was only possible by breaking the song into sections. Because of that, the connections between each piece became disjointed. I've got it to where it fades into and out of each piece but I agree that it needs work.

Another issue that I gathered was pacing:

I agree that some of the things were not long enough. There were scenes that I thought could have used more shots to make it less choppy. But overall, I feel that what I have is really good and will more than meet the parameters of the project.

After hundreds of photos, hours of set preperation, and days of final cut pro work, the project is done. Hopefully everyone will like what I have done. I am satisfied with the result and can't wait till the next project.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

I've changed what I'm doing because I realized this has to be based on a poem. I have decided to do mine on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in a solo project using the animate object and cut out style of doing the project. I have already started working on it and hope to get the first third done by tonight.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

I have decided to do a solo object animation project for this assignment. I have written up a production schedule, drawn up a brief storyboard, and taken some footage for experimentation. Hopefully that's good for now. My ideas are either have 2 toys fight in many places of have a fight in a ring go wrong.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I finally got my piece for the youtube project done yesterday. I spent almost the entire day getting everything together, adjusting the sound, and making sure it went smoothly. Hopefully my hard work will be shown when my project is displayed.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

I have decided to that I will do a tribute video to all things zombie. This is because I'm a horror movie fan and one of my favorite genres in that field is the zombie flicks. It will feature clips of movies done by George C. Romero like "Night of the Living Dead". It will show zombie dance moves with Michael Jackson. It will delve into the more current movies like "Dawn of the Dead(2004)" and "Shaun of the Dead". It will even feature moment's from the Resident Evil Franchise. I already have a bunch of the footage downloaded but am still looking for more.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I feel that the piece has a success in that it show that I am looking for something special to me and showing images that hint at it. The image was carefully chosen and were placed in the way I felt best showed the intent. The sound in the piece I felt best depicted how I felt when I was remembering High School.

Reflecting back is kind of sad for me and the music does that. The only thing that I would change is maybe add more images related to high school. As for the sound, there was a time where I wanted to compose my own sound to the piece but being that I'm an amature at doing that, I felt using a sound file from an allowed website would do better.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

After hearing what we could do with our source materials, I believe that can take a series of Youtube videos and make it look like your watching TV through the internet. It could be complicated, but I think that's what I'm looking for so I can have a challenge for myself.

I'm happy with the end product I made for project 1 and am pleased that my fellow students were interested in my piece. While I agree that there were a couple things I could have done better, I believe that I did great because of my history with the program.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

What I notice with advertisements for sodas or other drinks is that they are quick paced if they are for popular items. But without the sound to help out, they seem to lose a little of their attention grabbing ability. As for the commercials for beds like sleepy's or temprapedic, they seem to use few slow images or just one long one to inform customers. They also tend to use slow images of peaceful places instead of the bed the entire time to illustrate how relaxing the bed can be. Also you can tell what age group the commercials are aimed at by their speed. If their fast, then they want the younger generation to get the product. If it's slow, the goal is to get everyone interested in the product and not just certain people. Over all it would seem that the goal of the commercials determines how they are made.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

I have a couple ideas for the first project Digital Arts: Time Based but I'm still not sure which direction to go. Right now I'm thinking about a series of vacation spot photos with maybe some calming music audio and then the last image would be an image of a large pile of money to indicate that it isn't cheap to vacation these days. I'll write again if I have any other Ideas come to me.